13 November 2010

Card catalogue

This one at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) Memorial Library, via Librarianista.
I mourn the loss of the old card catalogs, not because I’m a Luddite, but because the oaken trays of yesteryear offered the researcher an element of random utility and felicitous surprise through encounters with adjacent cards, information by chance that is different in kind from the computer’s ramified but rigid order. (Annie Proulx)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...